Topekans begin again

The crest Washburn College trustees adopted in 1917 can be traced to the 11th-century knighting of Sir Roger Washbourne, but its message — “Purificatus non consumptus,” or “Purified, but not consumed” — echoed centuries later across the campus and throughout Topeka in the days and months following June 8, 1966.

The EF-5 tornado that touched down that day changed the capital city. Not just its landscape – though more than 800 homes and businesses would be ravaged by its passage – but in the spirit of renewal that developed in Topekans.

Stauffer Publications, then the parent company of The Topeka Daily Capital and The Topeka State Journal, wrote of the days after the storm: “Again, at final reckoning, it was the people who counted most, moving resolutely along littered streets in quest of life which is never quite lost so long as bold souls when knocked down stand up again, braced by the warm circlet of another’s arm.”

Some things changed for the better as the city rebuilt destroyed neighborhoods, businesses and homes. Gerald Barker, Washburn University’s vice president for university relations, said in a 1976 interview that “although we lost a lot of heritage and nostalgia, the tornado was probably a blessing in disguise.”

The city’s mayor at the time, Chuck Wright, echoed those words in a 1991 interview, saying, “The tornado helped the city rebuild, especially in areas that needed rebuilding.”

Reconstruction at Washburn

At Washburn University, with five major buildings destroyed and the rest damaged, its leaders gathered and began the task of making sure classes would go on as scheduled, both for the summer session that started in the days right after the tornado and the fall session, said Gene Mosiman, who retired from the university in 1998 as vice president of administration and treasurer. He was the business manager when the tornado struck.

Mosiman said he “wanted to lay down and bawl” when Washburn officials directed him and the late Jim Young, who retired in 1989 as the university’s vice president and provost, to get the summer school session running by June 12. They contacted Topeka Unified School District 501 and secured permission to use Topeka West High School as a classroom site.

“On reflection, many months and years later, those people that were in charge knew exactly what they were doing,” he said. “They wanted to make a statement that no tornado or anything else was going to deter Washburn from doing its job. That was the tone they set for everybody.”

Rebuilding

Rebuilding

Rebuilding

Rebuilding

Rebuilding

Rebuilding

Businesses revived

The rest of Topeka began rebuilding, too, and some businesses made changes for the better.

Payless ShoeSource, which was Volume Shoe Corp. at the time, left its destroyed offices at 911 S.E. Adams to begin anew outside of the downtown area. Christie Allen, a spokeswoman for Payless, said the original part of its current headquarters at 3231 S.E. 6th was built after the tornado.

The Frito-Lay plant at 713 S.E. 8th was destroyed in the storm, according to the July 1, 1966, Topeka State Journal. Tentative plans had been in the works to enlarge the location, so the company moved ahead.

“I.B. (Rocky) Rockenbach, plant manager, said this morning after talking with company officials in the Dallas headquarters and the Council Bluffs, Iowa, district headquarters that an enlarged and more modern Frito-Lay building definitely is planned in Topeka,” the newspaper reported. “The plant here now employs 56 persons. Rockenbach said as many as 250 may be employed in the new facility.”

Another positive was the establishment of the Better Business Bureau of Northeast Kansas.

“It was formed around that time frame because of some of these scams,” said Denise Groene, state director of the Wichita BBB. “We have a lot of our Topeka accredited businesses that joined in the mid-’60s.”

The experiences Topekans had in 1966 with scammers still occur today, Groene said. A new BBB project, Rebuild with Trust, focuses on a program that comes into areas devastated by tornadoes or other natural disasters to help educate people about roofing contractors, storm chasers, charitable donations and other topics.

Retired Topeka businessman Ray Beers Jr. said many downtown businesses rebuilt after the storm, including his clothing store. However, some also shuttered their doors.

Beers, a member of The Topeka Capital-Journal’s editorial advisory board, likes to think some of the changes made after the storm bettered the capital city.

“The housing situation changed a lot,” he said. “If you look in the long run — look what’s happened to Washburn since it was devastated. Look what’s going on here in the last year.”

The spirit of revitalization that thrived in Topeka after the devastating tornado has made a reappearance, Beers said. The planned Cyrus Hotel, pocket parks along S. Kansas Avenue and other projects in the works will once again change the landscape of the capital city.